


Beignets

by assbuttsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bakery, Fluff, Food, M/M, baker!benny, mechanic!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assbuttsinlove/pseuds/assbuttsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny's mother always told him that his hands were good for baking.  One day, Dean Winchester walks into his bakery, and he learns that his hands are good for other things too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beignets

The bakery was small.

Tucked away neatly between a Shakespeare and Company and an Art Supply store, there’s a steady stream of students and professors, all coming in for a quick coffee on their way to campus.  In the mornings, Benny sold lots of bagels, his most popular being the onion bagel, those were usually gone before ten.  The croissants were a big seller as well, quick and easy, and good with coffee.  Most of them were gone by the time the first morning rush is over. 

His mother always told him that he had baking hands, hands made for rolling dough and mixing batter.  He had laughed at her then, but when he looked down at his hands, those thick, stubby fingers, he realized that he so desperately wanted to believe her.  He wanted to know that he could do something good with those hands that sometimes felt so useless.  When she died, he was only fifteen, and he threw himself into cooking and baking, digging out all her old recipes and hounding his grandmother for more.  He learned how to knead dough, soft enough to make the most delicate beignets, how to make the flakiest pie crusts (from scratch), and how to make gumbo so tasty, you’d bite your tongue after the first mouthful.  He had spent hours upon hours in the kitchen, covered in flour and making his own sauces, learning how to properly cut up a chicken and how to make the best biscuits. 

His grandmother had taught him so much, and so had his mother, even though she had been gone.  He would sit in his room at night, running his fingers across stained pages, reading the little notes she scribbled in the margins of her recipes , things she learned from practice, from experience.  He even found things about him scribbled down on those pages, _Benji’s tooth fell out today,_ next to her gumbo recipe, and _he got into a fight today at school, came home with a black eye but he sent someone home with one too_ , next to her recipe for fried chicken.  He still had her books, on his shelf at home, every so often he took them out and read her words, ran his hands across the pages, wishing that she was still here. 

After culinary school, he had gotten married to his sweetheart, Andrea.  They had lived together for three years, had a daughter, Elizabeth, and then separated, when she told him that she had found love somewhere else.  His friends didn’t understand, and honestly, neither did he.  But those were the ways of women, and he didn’t question it, he didn’t fight her.  He let her go, and sometimes he wondered if he should have tried harder to convince her to stay.  They had come to a quiet arrangement with Elizabeth.  She spent most of the school year with her mother, but spent all her summers with her father at his apartment in the city.  He cooked for her, took her to the park, and taught her how to bake cookies. 

He was pleased to see that she too had baker’s hands.   

“Oh man, beignets?  Do you have any more of those?” someone asked, breaking Benny out of his reverie.  He looked up and was met by a pair of startlingly green eyes.  The man was staring at him expectantly, his brows were raised slightly and his pretty mouth was curled into a little smile. 

“I’m sorry?” Benny asked. 

The man grinned at him and Benny felt blood rush to his cheeks.  “Beignets, your menu said you carry them? I haven’t had one of those since I went to New Orleans,” he said with a laugh. 

Benny scrubbed a hand across his face, fingers rubbing across his soft beard, lost, for a moment, blinded by the smile on the face in front of him.  This hadn’t happened to him in a _long_ time.  He cleared his throat and put a smile on his face.  “Sorry brother, beignets are only on Friday’s,” he said. 

The man squinted up at the menu and then shook his head.  “Oh shit, I can read, I promise,” he said with a laugh. 

Benny grinned and shrugged his shoulders.  “It happens to the best of us,” he said.  He fiddled with something behind the register, taking his time to catalogue the striking features on the stranger’s face: the smattering of freckles on his skin, his bottle-green eyes, and his lush mouth, once more curled into a smile.  “I’ve never seen you around here before,” he said as he picked up a rag to wipe the counter, keeping his hands busy. 

The man nodded and bent over to look into the display case.  “Yeah, just here for a couple days, my baby brother is graduating on Tuesday,” he said. 

“Oh, really? Who is he, I might know him,” Benny said with a smile. 

The man straightened up and nodded.  “He’s the one who told me to come here, actually, tall guy, kinda moose-like, Sam Winchester,” he said with a rueful grin. 

Benny’s face lit up in recognition.  “Oh, Sam! Yeah he’s always in here, I usually save that table for him there in the corner,” he said, pointing to a small table tucked away in the corner of the shop.  Benny dropped his rag on the counter and pressed a hand against his hip.  “So you must be Dean, then,” he said. 

Dean looked up, a little surprised, and nodded.  “Yeah I am,” he said. 

“Sam mentioned you, oh about a thousand times,” Benny said with a little laugh. 

Dean laughed and shook his head.  “That kid,” Dean said, embarrassed. 

“He said you own your own auto shop, and you put him through school.  He’s real proud of you,” Benny said. 

Dean flushed and shrugged.  “Yeah, I did what I had to do,” he said modestly. 

Benny had heard so many stories about this Dean Winchester over the years, a part of him couldn’t believe that the man was actually standing in his shop, it was a little surreal, and eerie, that he knew things about this man and this man knew nothing about him.  He looked down at his hands and suddenly, he had an idea.  “Listen, ah…I’m usually closed on Sunday’s but…why don’t you come by tomorrow morning? I’ll bake you some fresh things, this stuff is all stale, it’s been sitting here all day and I’m getting ready to close up shop,” he said. 

Dean’s face fell and he shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly.  “Oh, nah, it’s fine, I’ll just take a couple of those doughnuts,” he said, pointing to two powdered doughnuts sitting at the front of the display case. 

Benny shook his head.  “I’m serious, Dean.  Look, your brother is a friend, I want to do this for you, you deserve it.  Come by around 9:00, won’t ya?” he asked with a little pout. “I’ll make you some breakfast.  Instead of you going to that generic-ass diner down the block,” he said with a huff. 

Dean stared at him and then he laughed.   He ran a hand through his hair and then shrugged.  “Ah shit, what the hell.  Sammy is busy anyway, so…alright, 9:30, then,” he said. 

Benny smiled at him.  “Alright, I’ll see you then, oh, here.”  He opened the display case and fished out the two doughnuts.  He put them in a little brown paper bag and handed it to Dean over the counter. 

Dean pulled out his wallet and Benny shook his head.  “On the house,” he said. 

Dean blushed and accepted the brown paper bag reluctantly.  “Thanks man,” he said with a grin.  “Sammy was right about you,” he said as he opened the bag. 

Benny cocked an eyebrow and chuckled.  “And what exactly did he say about me?” he asked. 

“Said you’re a really sweet guy,” Dean replied through a mouth stuffed with powdered doughnut.  “Holy shit, did you make these?” Dean asked.    He let out a little moan and Benny laughed. 

“Yeah I make everything fresh,” he said. 

“Oh my God, okay, I’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Dean said as he stuffed some more of the doughnut into his mouth. 

Benny watched as Dean sauntered out of the bakery and he cracked his knuckles.  He had a lot of work to do. 

* * *

Dean showed up at the bakery the following morning a little earlier than expected.  He pulled jacket closer to his body against the slight chill in the air.  He rapped his knuckles on the door and clutched at the bouquet of flowers in his hand awkwardly.  He thought it would be a nice gesture, and hoped that Benny wouldn’t think it was weird.  He listened for the familiar clicking of the lock and a minute later, the door opened. 

Benny smiled at him, his blue eyes twinkling in the early morning light.  “You’re just in time, come on in,” he said. 

Dean stepped inside and his jaw dropped open when he saw the table that had been moved to the middle of the room, laden with different things.  There were pancakes, waffles, some crepes, something that suspiciously looked like fresh bread, some eggs, and sitting in the middle, fresh beignets, lightly dusted with powdered sugar.  His mouth watered, and he looked over at the big bear of a man who was rubbing the back of his neck, face flushed, clearly embarrassed. 

“I feel like I went a little overboard,” he said with a grin. 

Dean shook his head and thrust the flowers forward.  “I got these, I thought you could…you know…use them for the shop,” he said with a shrug. 

Benny accepted the bouquet and pressed it up to his nose.  “They’re beautiful, thank you, Dean.  Why don’t you sit, I’ll go find a vase, I’m sure I have one in the kitchen somewhere,” he said. 

Dean nodded and walked over to the table.  He sat down and observed all of the food in front of him.  Everything looked delicious.  He could tell Benny made everything with care, and he imagined him for a moment in the kitchen, mixing pancake batter, frying eggs and making coffee.  He bit back a smile and watched as Benny walked back into the outer room with a vase filled high with the flowers. 

Dean shifted some things around and Benny placed the vase in the middle of the table. 

Their eyes met and they both burst into laughter, quickly draining the room of all its tension. 

“This is quite a spread,” Dean said with a laugh. 

Benny shook his head and shrugged.  “Go big or go home, I always say,” he said.  “I’m sorry if this is strange, I don’t usually do this I don’t know…” Benny said as he picked up a mug filled to the brim with black coffee. 

Dean waved him away and began to stir some sugar into his own mug.  “It’s nice… _really_ , I don’t remember the last time someone…” his voice trailed off and he continued to stir his coffee. 

“I think we can safely say that we’ve both been real busy for a long time,” Benny said as he took a sip of his coffee. 

Dean smiled and nodded.  “Yeah, I…I’ve been busy.  I mean Sammy got scholarships but…in the beginning it wasn’t easy,” he said quietly. 

“It never is,” Benny said.  He picked up the little dish with the beignets and he offered it to Dean. 

Carefully, Dean selected one and he brought it up to his lips.  He bit into it, and despite himself, he let out a soft moan.  “Holy shit, oh man, Benny, this is…wow,” he said as he took another bite. 

Benny grinned and took one of them, tearing it in half and eating it.  “My mama’s recipe,” he said with a grin. 

“Wow, she’s…she must be an amazing cook,” Dean said with a smile. 

“She was,” Benny said softly as he bit into the other half of the pastry. 

Silence settled around them and Dean reached for another pastry.  “Tell me about her,” Dean said with a smile. 

Benny looked up at him, blue eyes meeting green, and he smiled.  “Well, she always told me I had baking hands,” he began.  He looked down at his hands, and he smiled.  By the end of the day, he realized that his hands were good for more than just baking, they were good for more than kneading dough and mixing pancake batter.  He realized that his hands were good for holding on to hips, strong and sturdy. 

He also learned that his mouth was good for kisses; that his lips were soft and sweet, and tasted like beignets, covered in powdered sugar. 


End file.
